Monthly Archives: September 2017

Newsletter for Sunday 1 October 2017

29 Sep

THE ROSARY IS THE ‘WEAPON’

OCTOBER is the month during which the Church especially emphasises the importance of the Holy Rosary, largely because the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary falls this month. The feast was instituted to honour Our Lady for the victory of the Christians against the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 who were the enemies of the Church. Pope St Pius V got the whole of Christian Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. After five hours of battle, nearly all the Ottoman galleys lay on the floor of the Mediterranean. At the time, Pope Pius V was in his room in Rome talking business with someone, when he suddenly went into an ecstasy for about three minutes, and then announced to his visitor, “This is not the time for business. Let us give thanks to God for victory over the Turks.” He immediately attributed this unlikely victory to Our Lady and the Rosary. As a result, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was established on October 7th which we still celebrate today.

Our Lady, whenever she appears throughout the world always emphasises the importance of saying the Rosary. All the apparitions at Lourdes began with St Bernadette saying the Rosary with Our Lady. Our Lady told Sister Lucia of Fatima that in these troubled times in which we live, a new power had been given to the recitation of the Holy Rosary, and that there is no problem whether temporal, or above all spiritual, in our own lives or in the life of the whole world that cannot be resolved by the praying of the Rosary. “With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”

The saints and the popes have always stressed the importance of the daily Rosary. St Padre Pio said, “The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times.” Pope St John Paul II said the Rosary was his favourite prayer and “How beautiful is the family that recites the Rosary every evening!” If you don’t already say the Rosary, try to begin with one decade a day and then gradually build up to five decades. It becomes easier with practice. Equip yourselves for the daily battle in which we are all engaged – that is the battle for souls!

Fr. Paul Gillham IC

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Newsletter for Sunday 24 September 2017

22 Sep

“Why be Envious because I am Generous?”

It is not easy to understand the mind of God, and in today’s Gospel of the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, we could be tempted to side with the labourers who were hired first and worked the longest, because when we hear that they got paid the same as those who had arrived at the last moment, it might seem extremely unfair. It might also remind us of our futile attempts to try and understand why some people seem to make it through life with a fairly easy ride while others have many crosses. For this reason in the First Reading from Isaiah, God tells us that, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways not your ways.”

However, Our Lord is saying that we shouldn’t emulate the disgruntled labourer, but rather the generosity of the landowner who represents God. Those who complained were envious of the landowner’s generosity – envy being the desire to have what someone else has, not because we necessarily need it, but because we see someone else possessing it. Envy, of course, can lead on to other sins such as jealousy, theft, slander and even murder, which is why it is regarded as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

This parable, on the other hand is telling us to rejoice at God’s generosity to others. None of us is deserving of His grace and His many blessings. The landowner is extremely generous with these latecomers, and in a way are we not all latecomers? After all, have any of us ever spent every waking hour in God’s service? Of course not, because we have all sinned. But God forgives us of our sins whenever we repent, even if it is in the final moments of life. We all have reason to be grateful that God is generous!

Fr Paul Gillham

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Newsletter for Sunday 17 September 2017

16 Sep

Seven or Seventy-Seven Times?

It can be very hard for us to forgive people when they have harmed us in some way. It goes against our wounded human nature to renounce the vengeance we feel and to let those who have offended us go unpunished. But Our Lord today, in answer to Peter’s question tells us that we must not forgive only seven times, but seventy-seven times. This means we must be limitless in our forgiveness, because if we demand strict justice with those who offend us, we force God to demand strict justice from us. In other words we cut ourselves off from His mercy. “For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you” (Matthew 7:2). 

If people are going to believe in God’s mercy, they need to see us acting mercifully. The Dutch Carmelite priest, Blessed Titus Brandsma, who was sentenced to death by the Nazis at Dachau in 1942 – as the nurse was about to give him the lethal injection, he handed her his Rosary and assured her of his forgiveness. This eventually led to the woman’s conversion, and in 1985 she was an official guest as his beatification ceremony in Rome.

Forgiving someone who has hurt us badly is difficult, but with God’s help it is possible. Forgiveness though doesn’t mean we should pretend nothing ever happened, or that we should not seek justice, or that we should say it doesn’t matter, or that your relationship with this person should return to its former state. Forgiveness here means letting go of any bitterness and the desire for revenge, and wanting the spiritual good of the other person. And if at this moment that is too hard, why not try asking JESUS to forgive that person on your behalf?

Fr Paul Gillham

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Newsletter for Sunday 10 September 2017

11 Sep

“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”

Today’s First Reading from the prophet Ezekiel I always find a bit scary, because it’s about the grave obligation of fraternal correction. “If I say to a wicked man: Wicked wretch, you are to die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death” (Ezek 33:8). Fraternal correction is an act of charity, but it can be very hard to do so in today’s climate of moral relativism when people say, “well that’s your truth but I have my truth.” This is particularly the case where religion is concerned, where we can be accused of being intolerant or bigoted if we voice a Catholic viewpoint. But if we love someone we want what is best for them, and that means to give them the truth.  And that truth lies in the teaching and commandments of Jesus Christ, because He is God.

Relativism on the other hand proclaims that there is no objective right and wrong which everyone should live by. Moral judgements rest on how an individual ‘feels’ about such issues. For a relativist this is of paramount importance, hence there is no acceptance of sin.  But to insist there is no objective morality is already an absolute statement and one might just as well say, “It is objectively true that there is no objective truth” which is clearly illogical. The inevitable outcome of relativism is ‘Might is Right’ – what Pope Benedict XVI called “the dictatorship of relativism.”

There is an objective right and wrong, but whenever we try to call a person back from a false path, it should never be done out of self-righteousness or anger, but always out of love and concern for their salvation.

Fr Paul Gillham

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Newsletter for Sunday 3 September 2017

1 Sep

We are Saved Through the Mass

The first thing one notices on coming into St Mary’s is the stunning depiction of the crucifixion scene above the High Altar.  And indeed, the Church insists that there should be a cross on or above every altar where the Mass is celebrated – and not just an empty cross, but one depicting the crucified Christ in His agony.  In today’s Gospel, Our Lord predicts His passion, death and resurrection, but the disciples are scandalised by this, since they do not yet realise this is how the human race will be saved.  When Jesus stretched out His arms and died on the cross, He reconciled the whole human race with the Father, and earlier He had told use told us it is by His saving death that He wants us to remember Him.  On the night before He died, He took bread and gave it to His disciples saying, “This is My Body which is given for you.” And then over the chalice He said, “This is the chalice of My Blood poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in memory of Me.”

That which He had prefigured at the Last Supper, He realized fully the following day when He was crucified and poured out His Blood on the cross for all of us.  At every Mass, His death is made present on the altar.  Therefore, if Christ’s death on the cross is the most important event in human history because by it we are saved, it follows that Holy Mass too is the most important event in human history. Calvary and the Mass are one and the same.  The priest at every Mass is Jesus – not Fr Paul or Fr Simon, or even Pope Francis, but JESUS. In the words of Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “Picture then the High Priest Christ leaving the sacristy of Heaven for the altar of Calvary.  He has already put on the vestment of our human nature, the maniple of our suffering, the stole of priesthood, the chasuble of the Cross.  Calvary is His cathedral; the rock of Calvary is the altar stone; the sun turning to red is the sanctuary lamp; Mary and John are the living side altars; the Host is His Body; the wine is His Blood.  He is upright as Priest, yet He is prostrate as Victim. His Mass is about to begin” (1895-1979).

Fr Paul Gillham IC

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